#cruelty

Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell. ↗

— Francois Mauriac

#between #children #cruelty #discipline #does

Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust. ↗

— Marquis de Sade

#avarice #cruelty #fluid #founded #lends

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that. ↗

— Henry Rollins

#because #better #blood #change #change things

Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood - we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we. ↗

— Jean Rostand

#bad #cruelty #direction #facing #fail

All cruelty springs from weakness. ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#springs #weakness

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#cruelty #mankind #art

It's the worst kind of cruelty — the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it. ↗

— L.M. Montgomery

#l-m-montgomery #dreams

the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us... ↗

— Barack Obama

#cruelty #homosexuality #politics #religion #respect

Silence!” Korbolo snapped. He eyed Duiker. “You are the historian who rode with Coltaine.” The historian faced him. “I am.” “You are a soldier.” “As you say.” “I do, and so you shall die with these soldiers, in a manner no different-“ “You mean to slaughter ten thousand unarmed men and women, Korbolo Dom?” “I mean to cripple Tavore before she even sets foot on this continent. I mean to make her too furious to think. I mean to crack that façade so she dreams of vengeance day and night, poisoning her every decision.” “You always fashioned yourself as the Empire’s harshest Fist, didn’t you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty’s a virtue… ↗

— Steven Erikson

#malazan #soldier #dreams

You would never do anything like that, would you?" my wife asked him. "You would never hurt animals." Our son shook his head, looking offended by the question. He might have been lying, but my knowledge of his belief system, composed of equal parts off-kilter Far Side animal-centrism and a dark Captain Nemoesque contempt for humanity, inclined me to think he was telling the truth. Gigantic fish pulling the limbs from cruel little boys, that might be something you could get him to sign on for. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#humor #equality